New Delhi, India – When US President Donald Trump Trade Agreements With India on Monday this week, they announced that New Delhi would divest itself of Russian energy as part of the deal.
India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, said Trump had promised to stop buying Russian oil and instead buy crude from the United States and Venezuela, whose president, Nicolas Maduro, was kidnapped by US special forces in early January. Since then, the US has effectively controlled Venezuela’s massive oil industry.
In return, Trump reduced trade tariffs on Indian goods from a total of 50 percent to just 18 percent. Half of that 50 percent tariff was imposed last year as punishment for India buying Russian oil, which the White House has been financing for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
But as of Monday, India has not publicly confirmed that it has pledged to stop buying Russian oil or accept Venezuelan crude, analysts noted. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that Russia had not received any indication from India in this regard either.
And switching from Russian to Venezuelan oil is not easy. A cocktail of other factors – energy market shocks, prices, geography and the characteristics of different types of oil – will complicate New Delhi’s oil sourcing decisions, he says.
So, can India really dump Russian oil? And can Venezuelan crude replace it?
What is Trump’s plan?
Trump has been pressuring India to stop buying Russian oil for months. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the US and the European Union imposed an oil price cap on Russian crude to limit Russia’s ability to finance the war.
As a result, other countries, including India, started buying large quantities of cheap Russian oil. India became the second largest consumer of Russian oil after China, after getting only 2.5 percent of its oil from Russia before the war. It currently gets about 30 percent of its oil from Russia.
As punishment, Trump last year doubled trade tariffs on Indian goods from 25 percent to 50 percent. Later in the year, Trump also imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies — and threatened to impose secondary sanctions against countries and entities that do business with these companies.
Since Maduro was abducted by US forces in early January, Trump has effectively seized control of Venezuela’s oil sector, controlling the flow of sales cash.
Venezuela is estimated to have the largest proven oil reserves in the world 303 billion barrelsFive times more than the US, the world’s largest oil producer.
But while the US approach to India buying Venezuelan oil makes sense, analysts say it could be an operational mess.
How much oil does India import from Russia?
India currently imports about 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian crude, according to analyst firm Kpler. Under increasing pressure from Trump, it averaged 1.21 million bpd in December 2025 and less than 2 million bpd in mid-2025.
One barrel is equivalent to 159 liters (42 gallons) of crude oil. Once refined, one barrel typically produces about 73 liters (19 gallons) of gasoline for a car. Oil is also refined to produce a wide variety of products, from jet fuel to plastics and even household items including lotions.
Has India stopped buying Russian oil?
India has reduced its oil purchases from Russia over the past year, but it Didn’t stop buying completely.
Under increasing pressure from Trump, last August, Indian officials denounced the “hypocrisy” of the US and the European Union pressuring New Delhi to withdraw Russian crude.
Indian foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said, “In fact, India started importing from Russia as traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict. He added that India’s decision to import Russian oil was to “ensure predictable and affordable energy costs to Indian consumers”.
Despite this, Indian refiners, currently the second largest group of buyers of Russian oil after China, are winding down their purchases after clearing current schedule orders.
Major refiners such as Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL), and HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL) stopped buying from Russia following US sanctions on Russian oil producers last year.
Other players like Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Reliance Industries will soon stop their purchases.
What will happen if India suddenly stops buying Russian oil?
Even if India were to completely stop importing Russian oil, analysts say doing so would be prohibitively expensive.
India’s Oil and Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told reporters in September last year Energy prices and fuel inflation will also rise sharply. “The world will face dire consequences if supply cuts. The world cannot afford to keep Russia out of the oil market,” Puri said.
Analysts agree. “A complete shutdown of Indian purchases of Russian oil would be a major disruption. An immediate halt would raise global prices and threaten India’s economic growth,” said George Voloshin, an independent energy analyst in Paris.
Russian oil will likely be diverted to China and to “shadow” fleets of tankers that secretly deliver sanctioned oil by flying false flags and turning off location devices, Voloshin told Al Jazeera. “Mainstream tanker demand will shift to the Atlantic basin, likely resulting in higher global freight rates,” he noted.
Sumit Pokharna, vice-president of Kotak Securities, noted that Indian refiners have posted strong margins over the past two years, mainly benefiting from discounted Russian crude.
“If they go to a high-cost country like the US or Venezuela, the cost of raw materials will go up and that will reduce their margins,” he told Al Jazeera. “If they get out of control, they’re going to have to pass the cost on to consumers.”
Can India completely stop buying Russian oil?
This may not be possible. One of India’s two private refiners, Naira Energy, is majority-Russian-owned and subject to Western sanctions. Russian energy major Rosneft has a 49.13 percent stake in the company, which operates a 400,000-barrel-per-day refinery in India’s Gujarat, Prime Minister Modi’s home state.
Naira is the second largest importer of Russian crude, buying about 471,000 barrels per day in January this year, which is 40 percent of Russian supply to India.
Its plant has been entirely dependent on Russian crude since the European Union imposed sanctions on the company last July.
Naira does not plan to load Russian oil in April as it shuts down refineries for more than a month for maintenance starting April 10, according to Reuters.
Pokharna said the naira’s future hangs in the balance, as the US is unlikely to give India an outright exemption to import crude to a Russia-backed company.
Can India go after Venezuela’s oil?
India has been a major consumer of Venezuelan oil in the past. At its peak, in 2019, India imported $7.2 billion of oil, which was just 7 percent of total imports. That stopped after the US imposed sanctions on Venezuelan oil, but some executives from the state-owned oil and natural gas corporation are still stationed in the Latin American country.
Now, major Indian refiners have said they are open to getting Venezuelan oil again, but only if it is a viable option.
For one thing, Venezuela is roughly twice as far from India as it is from Russia and five times as far from the Middle East, which means freight costs are higher.
Venezuelan oil is also expensive. “Russian Urals (a medium-heavy crude blend) is trading at a wide discount to Brent of around $10-20 per barrel, while Venezuelan Mary currently offers a small discount of around $5-8 per barrel,” Voloshin told Al Jazeera.
“It will be costly for India to import from Venezuela and give up the Russian concession,” Pokharna said. “From transport costs to ongoing concessions, India could end up costing $6-8 more per barrel – and that’s a huge increase in the import bill.”
Overall, distancing itself from Russia could increase India’s import bill by $9bn to $11bn – an amount equal to India’s federal health budget – per year, according to Kpler.
“Venezuelan crude must be discounted by at least $10 to $12 per barrel to be competitive,” Woloshin argued. “These deep discounts are needed to offset higher freight costs, increased insurance premiums for longer Atlantic voyages and somewhat higher operational costs required to process Venezuela’s ultra-heavy high-sulfur crude.”
Without deep concessions, long journeys and complex handling make Venezuelan oil more expensive on a delivery basis, he added.
Another key issue is that many Indian refiners do not have the facilities to process the extremely heavy Venezuelan oil.
Venezuela’s crude oil is a heavy, sour oil, thick and viscous like molasses, high in sulfur, and requires complex, specialized refineries to process it into fuel. Only a small number of Indian refineries are equipped to handle it.
“(Venezuelan’s oil heaviness) leaves old and small refineries with options only for complex refineries,” Pokharna told Al Jazeera. “The shift is difficult to execute and requires blending with more expensive light crudes.”
Then there is the question of availability. Today, Venezuela produces only one million barrels per day when pushed to its limits. Even if all the production is sent to India, it will not match the total Russian oil imports.
Where can India buy oil?
Indian minister Puri said New Delhi is looking to diversify its sourcing options from around 40 countries.
As India has reduced Russian imports, it has increased its imports from Middle Eastern nations and other countries in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Now, Russia accounts for nearly 27 percent of India’s oil imports, while OPEC nations led by Iraq and Saudi Arabia account for 53 percent.
India has also increased its purchases of US oil due to Trump’s trade war. US crude imports into India rose 92 percent to nearly 13 million tonnes in the April-November period in 2025, compared to 7.1 million in the same period in 2024.
However, India will compete for these supplies with the European Union, which has pledged to spend $750 billion by 2028 on US energy and nuclear products.
Meanwhile, for Venezuela to return to higher production, Caracas needs political stability, foreign investment and changes to oil laws and debt clearing. Experts say that it will take time.
